Friday, May 15, 2015

Bits and Pieces

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Bad weather and too much work have combined to prevent me making any birding trips for the past couple of weeks. So I have had to make do with occasional opportunities to watch our backyard birds and a few quick walks around the college nature trail.

You can tell that spring is here by the number of young birds in our backyard. Our resident Carolina Chickadees have been bringing their young to our feeders. One of the parents seemed to be so tired with feeding its offspring that it lay down for a quick rest on our fence.



It was soon up and back at work again, though.



Our resident pair of Carolina Wrens are raising three young this year. At first the adults would park the young in a hanging basket and then bring food to them from our feeders.



The young birds are now getting bolder and spend a lot of time on our fence.


It is too early for baby Northern Cardinals yet. However, the male has been feeding his mate and so it won't be long before nesting occurs.


A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird has been enjoying some of our flowering plants, as well as a hummer feeder.


There has been a lot of non-bird activity in our yards, too. Anoles seem to pop up everywhere, including on our prickly pear.



Monarch butterflies are visiting regularly. Our milkweed plants are just recovering from the winter but they have had enough leaves to keep one Monarch caterpillar going. 



The college campus has been fairly quiet for birds, although we still have a flock of 1000+ Cedar Waxwings and scores of Cliff Swallows are nesting under one of our bridges.


A few migrants have trickled through but have only appeared when the light was too low for photos. More exciting has been the appearance of a Carolina Wren this week. They used to be common residents on the campus but this is the first one I've seen in over five years. I hope it decides to settle here!
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